Sixteen years ago Mark Buchanan
was wondering where in the world he should go to die. Now he runs two successful
websites and a company that transports life-saving drugs around the world
Words Amanda Elliot
The
moment Mark Buchanan became convinced HIV was not going to kill him was during
an out-of-body experience while he clung to life in a German hospital. That
was the moment Mark says he was certain there was some kind of God.
He teetered on the verge of death in intensive care, not because of any Aids-defining
illness – his CD4 count was a respectable 550 – but due to a blood
clot (thrombosis) in his lung. Doctors thought his time was up and called
Mark’s partner to his bedside to say goodbye.
“They had given up, they thought I was dying,” Mark, now 42, remembers.
“I was boiling hot. Then I was above my body looking down. I saw I was
red raw. I couldn’t believe it was happening. I couldn’t get back
in my body. Then a familiar looking man entered the unit and told me I could
go back into my body and that I would never die of HIV. He said I should trust
in myself and use my intuition to decide what to do next. It was a turning
point in my life.”
Easy does it
Mark’s laid-back manner belies his struggles with his HIV diagnosis
and the deep, spiritual belief acquired that night in intensive care. With
a degree in international marketing and a background in BBC drama wardrobe
production, Mark is an entrepreneur to the core but not in the aggressive
way portrayed on TV programmes like
The Apprentice.
Last year, he firmly staked a claim on his future, a future that until recently
he did not think he had, by launching the hugely successful website, gayweddings.co.uk.
The site advertises thousands of gay-friendly
wedding venues to enable couples to take full advantage of the new Civil Partnership
Act. He is also director of Delta T, a company that makes and supplies highly
specialised products for safely transporting blood, blood products, organs
and pharmaceuticals, including transporting HIV drugs to South Africa.
Next month Mark formally launches yet another website, bestman4bestman.co.uk,
a contact site for gay men that coordinates a range of social events and weekend
workshops for members.
From work to a wheelchair
When you talk to Mark you’re left with the impression that he effortlessly
makes a go of most things he turns his hand to. Not that Mark’s experience
of living HIV has been a walk in the park. When he seroconverted 16 years
ago, he was a high earning “industrial spy” working for a go-getting
city firm,jetting back and forth across the Atlantic.
“It wasn’t just a case of bad flu. I went on AZT straightaway
but that made me worse. I had crippling peripheral neuropathy and ended up
in a wheelchair for three months.
I told work I had a tropical disease but they became suspicious when they
saw the word toxoplasmosis on my medical report. They asked me to leave and
I did. That was long before any of us had the protection of the Disability
Discrimination Act.”
Diving instead of dying
Mark thinks he got HIV from a South African lover who lived in Chelsea’s
swanky Cadogan Square.
“Bill lived in this amazing place; looking back, it was probably left
to him by a wealthy partner who had died. But he never mentioned a partner
dying. We were both unwell and he just kept saying he didn’t want to
lose me. We both went for tests and he told me he was negative. The results
took three weeks but I just knew.”
As was so often the case in pre-HAART days, doctors made it clear he probably
didn’t have long to live. Mark’s partner had died of Aids and
nothing else was happening so he decided to up and leave.
“I stopped my medication and decided to do it my own way. I left London
and went to Miami where I learned to dive.” Next, Mark headed for the
Philippines to teach diving but instead ended up in a remote hospital in Thailand
with PCP. His doctor in London urged him to return to England but he decided
to press on against medical advice, travelling to Manila.
“I found a clinic that treated Aids patients but it was a highly clandestine
situation. You really didn’t want anyone there finding out you were
positive.”
Island life
He moved to the island of Boracay where he stayed for a year, living quietly
teaching German and English and diving to German and Swiss tourists. Gradually
his CD4 climbed from 60 to 550 without meds.
“It was a good life, it was comfortable.
I had a bungalow and could get a massage any time. I went there because I
didn’t want friends and family to watch me die. The gay scene was non-existent
but then this London geezer came out. He was gay and worked out I was, too.
He liked me because I taught him how to dive. He told me to go back to London
because he was on meds and doing very well.”
But Mark didn’t leave the island until it was hit by a typhoon. It was
destructive enough to kill a couple
of islanders and prompted Mark to conclude that the ‘London geezer’
was probably right after all.
Back
to life, back to reality
Instead of returning to London he went to stay with a girlfriend in Frankfurt,
Germany, where he felt happier and well enough to start job hunting. But when
he tried to use health services he encountered a problem.
“The system there is based largely on
private health, so once you register they know everything about you, there’s
no anonymity.”
He figured access to HIV medications was probably no better in Germany than
in the UK and returned to London to receive treatment at the Chelsea and Westminster
Hospital. Despite his CD4 dropping to just four and having abscesses and other
infections, Mark stayed off the meds until 1998 when his health deteriorated
significantly.
“My attitude was to put off the moment until it was absolutely necessary.
In the early nineties better meds were coming out but
I didn’t want to be a guinea pig.”
Once on therapy, his health improved steadily until his brush with death in
the German hospital. Mark’s rapid recovery from that potentially fatal
thrombosis confounded his doctors and confused his medical insurers who could
find no post-illness evidence of thrombosis on his CT scans. And as only medical
insurers could, they argued he could never have been ill in the first place.
Gay weddings: a gift for the Brits
It was while fighting for a payout on his medical insurance that Mark ‘fell
into’ the gay weddings business. Germany was among the first wave of
European nations to change the law to favour gay couples in 2001 but it did
so without much fanfare. He helped his friend set up a gay weddings business
there, but deep down Mark knew the real excitement and business opportunities
would be in the UK when it finally pushed through the Civil Partnership Act.
“In Germany there wasn’t much fuss but I knew the Brits would
want to do it in style, with a bit of a party, and there would be loads of
media coverage and hype.”
He spotted that the internet domain name gayweddings.co.uk was up for renewal
on 26 September 2005. That day he made a point of checking; it remained unrenewed.
So Mark paid £5 and became the owner of a website and invested a further
£5,000. A number of HIV positive couples were among his first customers.
“Gayweddings.co.uk cuts out the crap of couples having to find gay-friendly
venues,” says Mark. “When I started contacting places I was amazed
how many weren’t interested.”
According to research, only a third of the 4,437 officially approved weddings
venues in the UK are happy to host gay weddings.
On 6 June Mark launches his latest website, bestman4bestman.co.uk. He spotted
a gap in the market after becoming single.
“I noticed the UK gay scene was awash with clubs, bars, saunas and contact
sites for quick-fix sex. But there was little else.
I’ve teamed up with trainers and hotels in mainly rural locations to
co-ordinate and run workshops. By joining, gay men will be able to improve
or learn new skills, from horseriding to DJing, while also meeting
like-minded men on the way.”
• www.bestman4bestman.co.uk
• www.gayweddings.co.uk
back to
contents - Issue 123
back to top of page
